


Reflections

by learningtolove



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Elle is perfect as usual, F/F, F/M, Fix-it fic, Fluff and Angst, JJ is a bisexual disaster, Jemily are very gay and very cute, Prison Spencer makes his appearance, Spencer misses Elle, this is what SHOULD’VE happened
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23705617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/learningtolove/pseuds/learningtolove
Summary: “Where have you been? Do you know if you’re coming back?”Elle Greenaway has recently departed the BAU. JJ falls quickly into bliss with her replacement, Emily, while Spencer can’t stop himself from pouting around the office. When Emily starts mentioning her past co-worker and friend she’s been in contact with, JJ can’t help but notice the similarities to Elle. But it couldn’t be her... right?
Relationships: Elle Greenaway/Spencer Reid, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/Emily Prentiss
Comments: 2
Kudos: 54





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’m so very excited about this fic! I was listening to ‘Reflections’ by the Neighbourhood and thinking about how Elle and Spencer should’ve ended up together and somehow this idea came together! I hope you all enjoy this CM rewrite <3

Emily Prentiss was the last thing JJ expected to walk in the door of the Behavioral Analysis Unit after Elle left. It was good in a way, the raven-haired agent a welcome distraction to keep her from grieving over her missing friend. Elle’s resignation had been so swift that none of the team had even had the chance to say goodbye.

Spencer was clearly taking it the hardest. JJ had had a sneaking suspicion that the genius's feelings for Elle had run a little deeper than that of his other teammates and his constant moping around the office was a clear confirmation. She’d tried hinting around it in conversation with him, but he’d simply given her confused Bambi eyes that she hadn’t been able to decipher as a ruse or not.

She’d had to let go of prying into Spencer’s feelings after a week or so, the frustration she felt at his utter refusal to open up to any of them about Elle almost as great as her concern for him. Instead, her immediate attention had been turned to SSA Prentiss. Immediate attention was an understated way of explaining that somehow her every spare thought had been turned to her co-worker. It was jarring. Not because Emily was a woman (she had figured out that part of herself her sophomore year at University of Pittsburgh), but because simple tasks she had once been able to complete with her eyes closed were now nearly impossible anytime Emily was around. 

Pouring coffee in the break room had become a health hazard whenever Emily walked in and flashed her a brilliant smile. Carrying case files into the conference room became a surefire tornado of papers if Emily walked by in one of her suits. Even the once easy task of speaking had now become a challenge. JJ was incapable of getting through a sentence without tripping on her words if Emily was looking at her with those brown eyes.

Hotch and Gideon seemed intent on ignoring it, Derek and Penelope couldn’t resist the urge to tease her about her mounting crush at every opportunity, Spencer didn’t understand social cues well enough to process his best friend’s new infatuation, and Emily had become too engrossed in learning how to efficiently text on her new phone to have even noticed. Or so she thought.

The two women had been sitting side-by-side on the plane, Emily typing away on her phone and JJ trying to discreetly look at the phone screen without giving herself away. She was a firm believer in the team’s right to privacy outside of the office, but she couldn’t help herself from staring at the little flip phone, trying to work out the name that kept popping up on Emily’s screen.

“It’s an old coworker of mine. We worked together in New York before I started at the field office out west,” Emily suddenly said, a knowing smirk on her face as she looked over at the blonde sitting next to her. “She’s been going through a tough time lately. I just wanted to check in on her.”

JJ nodded mutely, her cheeks flushed a deep pink. “Yeah, of course… I didn’t… I mean…” she fumbled over her words, embarrassment at having been caught resting heavy in her chest.

Emily chuckled and reached her hand up, brushing a lock of JJ’s hair that had fallen into her face back behind her ear. “It’s okay,” she murmured quietly. “Me and her are just friends. No need to worry your pretty little head.” 

The pretty little head in question let out a noise that seemed to be a jumble of a cough and a strangled moan. Her cheeks deepend in color at the boisterous laugh it generated from Derek, the confused pesterings of Spencer, and the barely there smirks of both Hotch and Gideon. JJ was pretty sure if the plane didn’t land immediately, she was going to be forced into throwing herself out the door.

Things between the two agents gradually began to escalate. Casual flirting turned into mounting sexual tension which turned into a blistering kiss in JJ’s car which turned into dinner every night for a week which somehow turned into Emily and JJ walking in to the BAU holding hands every day and the team pretending not to notice when the two would unexplainably go missing for long periods of time together.

Emily’s old coworker still popped up into their conversations and JJ couldn’t shake the familiarity of the woman. She had worked with Emily in sex crimes at the NYPD, she had left her long-time job due to mental health reasons, and after taking a few months off to heal, she had returned to New York City and the sex crimes divison, this time as head of the whole department. Emily described her as headstrong and fearless, explaining to JJ how she had been the one to push her towards applying to the FBI in the first place. 

There was no way it could be Elle. Her girlfriend would have told her if the person she had been talking to for months had been her friend. She would have at the very least told Spencer, who still couldn’t look at the desk across from his without a perpetual sadness painting his features. But nonetheless, everytime Emily spoke of her friend, JJ couldn’t avoid the sneaking suspicion that Elle and Emily’s old coworker were one and the same.

“Where did Elle used to work before she came to the FBI?” she blurted out to Spencer one day while they were having lunch. 

Spencer paused mid-bite into his peanut butter and jelly. “Before she went to the Seattle office? New York City,” he murmured through a mouth full. “Why?”

JJ shrugged nonchalantly, pushing around the tomato in her salad. “Just curious, I guess.” She looked up at her best friend, who was doing his very best to avoid making eye contact. “Do you ever wonder where she is now?”

“She went back to New York,” he stated with a sigh, a faint blush tinging his cheeks.  
“Wait, you know where Elle is?”

“Of course I do.” Spencer put down his sandwich, raising his head to look JJ directly in the eyes. “I know you know this and I’m sure the whole BAU knows this, but I… I loved her. And I knew she wasn’t okay and yet when they stuck her in as bait for that unsub I didn’t say anything and then she just quit and left and never said goodbye and I needed to know she was okay.” He was rambling, his words pouring out of him like a massive tidal wave. “So I bribed Garcia by telling her I would buy her croissants from that bakery she likes every day for a month if she would find Elle for me and she did. Elle went back home to Brooklyn where she was basically a ghost for five months until the local paper was posting about how she was working at the special victims unit.” 

He stopped and took a deep breath, his eyes growing watery as he picked absently at the bread of his sandwich. “She grew her hair back out,” Spencer said quietly.

JJ reached across the table, taking Spencer’s anxiety-riddled hands in her. She could feel her heart breaking for him, the pain he had been harboring over Elle leaving painted so clearly across his face now. She wanted to tell him to get in the car right this very second and to take him straight to Elle’s doorstop. But she knew that wasn’t what he needed and she knew it wasn’t what Elle would have wanted.

“Have you contacted her at all?” JJ finally settled on.

Spencer shook his head. “She left without saying goodbye. I figured it was probably for a reason.”

“She misses you for what it’s worth.”

JJ and Spencer both looked up to see Emily leaning in the doorway, a soft smile overtaking her features. She walked over to her girlfriend and her friend, pulling up a chair to sit at the table with them. She looked over at JJ, running her thumb gently down the blonde’s cheek.

“She didn’t want me to tell anyone here we knew each other. Said she didn’t want everyone pestering me about her and wanted me to be able to be my own person here,” Emily said sadly. She turned her head to look at Spencer. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

He nodded at her, smiling lightly. “It’s okay. I’m just glad she’s okay.”

“She is. For the first time in a while, she really is.”

The three of them sat there like that, huddled together around the table, their sadness and joy mingling together in the air. It wasn’t until Hotch poked his head in, proclaiming wheels up in 30 minutes that they all arose and walked out of the break room. JJ rested her body against Emily’s as they watched Spencer walk over to his desk to grab his bag. She smiled as he looked at the desk across from his for the first time in months, a secret sort of smile gracing his face. She let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding since Elle had left.

He was going to be okay.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ten years later and Spencer has landed himself in jail and is quickly losing hope for himself. But when JJ brings him a surprise, things may start to finally be turning around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm super excited about this chapter! I took several liberties in the details of the prison in order to fit what I wanted to write, but I hope there's not too many bothersome inaccuracies. I also tried my best to find out as much about the NYPD's Special Victims Unit, but I genuinely could not find a lot of details that did not involve SVU, so I made a thing or two up for the sake of making my girl thrive. Kudos and comments are always appreciated and I hope you all enjoy!

It was at least ten years before Elle came up again. None of the team members who had known her directly brought her up and eventually the memory of Elle Greenaway shifted to the backburner of their minds. Emily would still mention her former co-worker from time to time and it was obvious that Spencer had been keeping up tabs on the former agent from a distance, but her name never fell straight from anyone’s lips.

And then Spencer got arrested. It happened so fast, the arrest in Mexico, the murder charges, shipping him to the facility in DC. It was a punch in the gut to the entire team seeing him fall so far. Their lovable and esteemed Dr. Reid, resident boy wonder, sitting in a prison cell while awaiting trial. 

They had taken up shifts in order to visit him, one person being allowed to visit him for the week in order to keep from interfering with cases. JJ had been going to Millburn the most, though seeing him losing hope more and more each time she saw him was almost as excruciating as not seeing him at all. She had never dreamed she would be seeing him like this. 

“I called her.”

JJ looked up from her spot on the couch to see her girlfriend standing in the doorway of their kitchen. She had just finished putting the boys to bed and was currently trying to figure out how she was going to break the news to Spencer about his negative toxicology screening tomorrow when Emily had spoken to her.

“Who’s her?” she asked, her brain too tired to put together the obvious puzzle pieces.

“Elle,” Emily said, taking a seat next to her on the couch. “I called Elle and told her what happened with Reid.”

The new information made JJ pause, her mouth silently opening and closing before she finally settled on “And?”

“She got on a plane headed to DC an hour ago. I’m going to go pick her up. I know I probably should’ve asked first, but I told her to skip the hotel and that she could just stay in the guest room here with us.” The unit chief chewed her lip nervously at the loud silence from her girlfriend. “Is that okay?”

For the first time in weeks, a smile snuck her way onto JJ’s face. Elle was coming. Elle was coming here to see them and more importantly, to see Spencer.

JJ grabbed Emily’s hand, looking straight into her eyes. “Yeah, that’s okay. That’s more than okay.”

An hour later and Emily was walking in with former SSA Elle Greenaway by her side. It had been almost ten years since the blonde had seen her and yet in that moment, it was like she had been laughing with her in the bullpen yesterday. She wrapped Elle in a hug without a moment’s hesitation, chuckling quietly at the ‘oof’ that left the brunette as she was crushed in her strong arms.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Elle,” JJ whispered into her ear. “I don’t know how we would’ve gotten through this without you.”

Elle smiled softly, unexpected tears threatening to run loose as she saw the honest happiness in her former teammate’s face. “I’m really glad I’m here too,” she said. And she meant it. 

The sun had barely started to rise through the tiny bars of the window the next morning when the warden woke Spencer. He groggily arose from the hard bed, confusion painting his features as he followed the large man to the visitation room. He had never had a visitor this early the entire time he had been incarcerated. But there JJ was, sitting with a ridiculously bright smile in her face.

“What are you doing here so early?” he muttered, sitting down across from his best friend. She had been coming to see him the most out of all his team members and never once had he seen her look so positively jovial. “Has there been a breakthrough in my case?”

JJ’s smile faltered slightly as she shook her head. “No. But the last time I saw you I promised you wouldn’t be alone,” she ached to reach for his hand when she saw the pain in his eyes as she confessed she wasn’t here with news of his freedom. “I’m trying to do that the best way I can.”

“What the fuck does that even mean?” Spencer practically growled, frustration overtaking him. She had the nerve to sit across from him looking like the cat that caught the canary while he was deteriorating behind bars. “I know it seems like I have all the time in the world here, but I’m not interested in games. I’m not interested in cryptic messages.” His voice broke as angry tears sprouted and his head dropped to his chest. “JJ, I just want to go home.”

“I know. And I wish I could tell you that’s what I was here for. It’s not. But,” JJ willed him to meet her eyes and smiled softly when he did. “I have something almost as good. It’s coming later on this afternoon and no, it’s not your freedom, and no, it’s not Scratch’s head on a platter. But I really do think it’s gonna make this all a little bit better.”

Spencer was even more pissed off and confused after her sudo-explanation, but he was being called out of the room before he could ask for clarity. JJ smiled at him as he walked away, knowing that whatever he was feeling right now would practically disappear the minute he saw what was coming for him.

When the warden came hours later for him, Spencer was so worked up from JJ’s visit that it took a harsh jab from a baton to get him moving back towards the visitation room. He entered and slowly walked the rows of chairs and glass, scanning the room for his promised surprise. No one from his team was there and he felt his chest tighten as anger arose. What the fuck was JJ playing at? He reached the last aisle, his cheeks pink and profanities sharp on his tongue when he stopped dead in his tracks. Because sitting ten feet away from him was the woman who had crossed his mind at least once a day for the last ten years. His anger disappeared, his shoulders dropping as the tension left his body, because sitting ten feet away from him and looking up at him with a sad smile on her face was Elle Greenaway.

Her dark hair stood out against the bright red sweater she was wearing and it flowed down to her chest in waves like it once used to. She was wearing her gold coin necklace that he had learned came from her grandmother. Her nails were black and she picked at the polish with a clear nervous energy. As he sat down across from her, he couldn’t ignore the absence of a ring on her finger or the jolt of happiness that shot down his spine because of it. It had been almost ten years and yet she still looked nearly the same. Elle. His Elle.

She looked up into his eyes and suddenly everything he had wanted to tell her for the last decade evaporated from his mind. She was here, for him, and all he wanted was to gather her up in his arms and never let go. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t because he was in prison for murder charges and after ten years, this was how she was seeing him for the first time. As a tired, broken man in an ugly blue jumpsuit awaiting trial. He could feel himself retreating within, practically cowering away from the woman in front of him as the shame of his situation washed over him.

“Stop it. Don’t do that to yourself. You don’t have to hide,” Elle said with notable worry in her voice. “Not from me.”

He jerked his head up to meet her eyes again and couldn’t help but smile at the familiar look of stern concern he saw there. She placed her hand on the divide between them, her palm upturned. Spencer glanced nervously at the warden standing in the room before looking back down at Elle’s hand. 

“Spencer, it’s been ten years. Hold my fucking hand.” 

He did it without allowing himself a second thought. His hand clasped her smaller one and suddenly a weight he didn’t know he had been holding on to fell from his shoulders. He brought their hands up to his lips, softly kissing the tops of her fingers. There were a million things he wanted to tell her in this moment and yet as they sat there, simply looking at each other, he knew without a shred of doubt that she already knew every single one of them.

“Emily called me last night. Told me what had happened and I knew…” Elle trailed off as tears glossed over her eyes, using her hand that wasn’t entrapped in Spencer’s to wipe away a rogue one that had fallen down her cheek. “I knew I needed to be here. To see you.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see anyone in my entire life,” he said honestly. 

Elle grimaced, shaking her head softly. “At first I was mad. So mad that I broke a glass in my apartment, which was really expensive and you completely owe me for.” Spencer laughed at that, the image of Elle chucking drinkware across her kitchen in anger far too easy to picture. “I couldn’t understand how you could be so stupid, Spencer. I mean, come on! Drugs in Mexico? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Elle, they were for-”

“I know,” she interrupted. “I know they were for your mom. But it was reckless and moronic and we both know that. God, I was fucking fuming. But then Emily mentioned the murder charges and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that you were innocent of that. And the thought of you sitting in prison, alone and blaming yourself, was the most heartbreaking thing I could ever imagine.” Elle let out a shaky breath, stroking her thumb over the side of Spencer’s hand, blatantly ignoring the raised eyebrow of the warden. She had been hiding from this man and what he meant to her for ten years and she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to sit there and hold his hand if she wanted to.

“I don’t want to talk about this. Not this, as in this,” he gestured his free hand between the two of them, a bright smile spreading across his face when Elle let out a genuine laugh at that. “But this. Prison, the charges, the drugs, it’s all I ever talk about now. And I’m just so tired of it and it’s been so long since I had you in front of me and I just think we should talk about absolutely anything else.”

“I got promoted to lead of the Special Victims Division last week,” Elle said, feeling proud once she saw the way Spencer’s eyes lit up at the news. “I have to move out of Brooklyn and over to Manhattan, but I’m the youngest chief and the first woman, so…” she trailed off with a bashful shrug.

“That’s amazing. You’re amazing,” Spencer looked at Elle with wonder in his eyes. “I’m so proud of you, Elle.”

She opened her mouth to answer when the warden abruptly yelled that visiting hours were over. Her heart ached when she saw the sadness in Spencer’s eyes return once again. The two slowly stood up, their hands still joined together in front of them.

“When am I gonna see you again?” Spencer murmured.

“Tomorrow. The day after that. Then the day after that. And every single day after that until you walk out of here,” Elle replied.

The agent smiled at that, kissing Elle’s fingers one more time before he let go of them. He turned to walk away when the brunette’s gentle hand reached out and grasped his wrist.

“Spencer.”

Anything he would’ve said in response was immediately silenced by Elle reaching out and yanking him half way across the table to her. And then she was kissing him. One hand tangled in his straggly hair while she kept the other firmly gripping his prison shirt as her mouth worked against his. He didn’t have anytime to think about the way she tasted like cinnamon and vanilla or the way her soft hair tickled his face. He didn’t have time to think about how soft her jaw was under his hand or how her lips opened for him as soon as his tongue swiped over them. He didn’t have time to think about anything other than the fact that Elle Greenaway was kissing him like their lives depended on it and in that very moment, he was quite sure they did.

The warden shrieked a call of no touching, jogging to the back of the room to break the two up. Elle reluctantly pulled away, smirking at Spencer’s puffy lips and pink face. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow. We’ll talk more then, okay?”

Spencer smiled brightly as the warden grabbed his shoulder and jerked him towards the exit. 

“I'll see you tomorrow.”


End file.
